My planning internship in Paris

I had some good news this week. French Institute in Seoul told me that I would work in the Institute of Urban Planning of Ile-de-France (IAU IDF) in this fall. It is a government institution which is specialized in the study of urban planning of Paris and its surrounding area (Ile-de-France). I wanted to do an internship there when I was a student in Paris years ago. However, I couldn't dream of working there at that time with my insufficient experience. This year I originally wanted to work in the City Hall of Paris but the IAU must be a better alternative than the original.

I will work for three months from Oct 1, 2010 and be given two main missions. According to my wishes, the first mission is about analyzing Local Planning Documents (Plan Local d'Urbanisme) of various communes in Ile-de-France including those of Paris. I am greatly interested in how urban planning is established and executed at local level in France. From the French practice, I would like to propose decentralization of urban planning system in South Korea whose planning system is very centralized.

The second mission is about my country. The IAU currently studies Science Cities. They try to benchmark reknowned Science Cities in the world. They finished their work on Europe in 2009. This year it's the turn of Asia: Singapore and Seoul. I'm both excited at Seoul's nomination and the possibility of my contribution in the study.

The turn of events confirms somehow my decision of studying in Seoul rather than continuing it in Paris. However you are international or cosmopolitan, you can't detach yourself from your root and you should understand your root first.

Zotero, a convenient referencing tool

Referencing is almost an art when writing an academic paper. As scholars all over the world continuously contribute to the accumulation of human knowledge, you always have a lot to read before producing your own contribution. Managing and mentionning the reading list is a cumbersome but unavoidable task in the process.
There are many softwares to make the task easy but Zotero is one of a kind. It has some nice time and typing saving features.

1. Zotero collects bibliographical information automatically from library or bookstore sites. You don't need to worry about typing in titles of books and author names which often have difficult spellings. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work well for non English bibliography. However, it does record the site that the bibliographical information is collected, so it's still useful for bibliographical collection in other languages.

2. Zotero saves the information collected and you can search your huge booklist with ease. You can even link your bibliography to your e-documents in hard disk. Thus you can search and read your pdf almost instantly.

3. Zotero exports your bibliography to your academic paper in official referencing format. You don't need to worry about typing them all!

The only shortcoming is that the program is not standalone. You should execute Firefox first to use it and my Firefox seems somewhat unstable after installing Zotero.

Zotero Home
조테로 한글 가이드와 몇 가지 팁

우리 동네, 난곡 - 그 많던 이웃 사촌은 어디로 갔나?

오마이뉴스 난곡그후 취재팀이 만든 이 블로그는 난곡 재개발 지구의 원주민의 삶을 심층취재한 블로그이다. 2008년 6월에서 2009년 2월까지 200개가 넘는 기사가 올라와있는데 모두 발로 뛴 노력에서 나온 값진 노력의 산물이다.

이 블로그에는...

재개발에 치여 계속 변두리로 밀려나야하는 돈없는 세입자의 사연
"또 짐 싸?", 난곡에서도 쫓겨났는데...

“4000~4500 하던 집이 금방 1억 해요. 돈 있으면 사지요. 저렇게 하면 돈 버는구나, 돈 버는 방법은 알겠는데 돈 없으니 어쩌겠어요. 눈 뜨고 당하는 거지요”

남들이 보기에는 철거해야할 불량주택촌이지만 애착을 가지고 살아가는 주민들의 사연
아슬아슬 생활 터전, "계속 살게 해주세요." -난향동 산93-1번지 난곡 원주민의 소원

“나는 이곳이 너무 좋아서 살아요. 산 밑이고, 복지관 앞이니 혜택도 좋고. 공기도 좋고. 나는 좋아서 여기 살고 있고 죽을 때까지 여기 살고 싶어요.”

달동네 대신 들어선 영구임대아파트의 비싼 관리비를 감당 못하는 사연
"월세에 관리비까지, 임대아파트도 벅차다" 난곡 세입자들에게 주공이 던져 준 '빛 좋은 개살구'
“넓고, 화장실 있고, 지저분한 벌레 없고 환경이야 너무 좋죠. 남 보기도 좋고. 그런데 아무래도 돈이 부담이에요. 매달 내는 관리비.”

이 밖에도 화려한 재개발 아파트 뒤에 사라져버린 우리 이웃들의 이야기가 그들의 목소리 그대로 올라와있다. 기사의 질이 높은 덕택에 댓글도 많이 달려있는데 댓글을 통해 재개발 찬성과 반대로 극명히 나뉘는 사람들의 생각도 엿볼 수 있다.

Name and house price

There was an interesting study in UK on the relationship of street name and house price. The study found houses on hill, lane, mews, park, and green are more expensive than the ones on street, crescent, court and view. Britons seem to be strongly attracted by greenery considering all the favorite names bear the image of green and countryside. It's no surprise from the land where the Garden City movement originated.

Click here to read the article

In Korea, we also have hills, castles etc but they are names of apartments. These "branded" apartments tend to be more expensive than their counterparts carrying the names of constructors such as Hyundai or Lotte. Branding and naming of Korean apartments is one of the reasons of thier phenomenal success on the peninsular although big name signs all over the apartments are not so pretty to look at.

임대료보조와 주택바우처

월지원금액이 43000원에서 65000원으로 언뜻보면 작아보이나, 10-20만원 정도의 저렴한 월세방에서 살고 있는 저소득자에게는 결코 작지 않은 도움이 될 것으로 보이며 갑자기 살곳이 없어진 주택정비사업 철거세입자에게도 유용할 것으로 보인다. (단 서울시 정책으로써 서울거주자에만 해당)

월세가 부담된다면, ‘주택바우처’ 신청하세요